"Scandalous, outrageous and disrespectful" were victims' attorney John Burris' words for the scandal involving San Francisco police officers preying on suspects. "Betrayal of the public trust" and an insult to the many honorable men and women of the force, said Police Chief Greg Suhr.

Let us add one more description: sickening.

The allegations themselves suggest misconduct beyond the pale: The notion that police officers sworn to protect and serve could engage in criminal conduct by preying on down-and-out San Franciscans is just plain disgusting.

What's worse is the way this breach of trust was discovered. It wasn't the result of honest officers blowing the whistle on their rogue colleagues or by some checkpoint against corruption within the department. It came to light when Public Defender Jeff Adachi went public with security-camera videotape from single-room occupancy hotels that showed serious discrepancies in the officers' descriptions of searches.

Adachi has said more than 100 criminal cases had to be dropped because of the tainted searches.

If there was a silver lining in this sordid mess, it was the chief's willingness to grasp the gravity of the situation and assume accountability for repairing the damage to his department. Even though the rogue activity occurred during the tenure of Suhr's predecessor, now District Attorney George Gascón, the current chief made plain it was his problem.

Suhr vowed to seek the "immediate termination" of any officer convicted of the charges. He knew it would be his job to persuade the public that what they are seeing on camera was a serious but rare lapse of professional protocol - and that systems are being put in place to assure that it is unlikely to happen again.

The officers are entitled to a presumption of innocence. Four of the accused officers denied the charges of drug dealing, theft and corruption during their initial appearances in federal court Friday.

No matter how these cases turn out, one fact is unmistakable: The evidence that pointed to wrongdoing would not have been possible if the hotel owners had not installed security surveillance and held the video in storage for an extended time. It would have come down to the word of the officers against the testimony of suspects.

This case shows the need for San Francisco and other departments to accelerate and expand the adoption of wearable video cameras on officers. As Adachi has stated, prosecutors and judges have a tendency to defer to an officer's word in a dispute. Video evidence will enable the judicial system to verify that trust.